Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway (born January 2, 1938) in White Plains, New York, is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, inventor, transwoman, and activist for the transgender community. Conway is notable for a number of pioneering achievements, including the Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design, which incubated an emerging electronic design automation industry. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and is credited with the invention of generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order execution, used by most modern computer processors to improve performance."Embracing Diversity – HP employees in Fort Collins, Colorado, welcome Dr. Lynn Conway", hpNOW, February 8, 2001."Lynn Conway: 2009 Computer Pioneer Award Recipient", IEEE Computer Society, January 20, 2010."Computer Society Names Computer Pioneers", IEEE Computer Society, January 20, 2010."IEEE Computer Society Video: Lynn Conway receives 2009 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award", YouTube, July 30, 2010."Event: IBM ACS System: A Pioneering Supercomputer Project of the 1960s", Computer History Museum, February 18, 2010."Computer History Museum Events: IBM ACS System: A Pioneering Supercomputer Project of the 1960s", Computer History Museum, February 18, 2010."Historical Reflections: IBM's Single-Processor Supercomputer Efforts - Insights on the pioneering IBM Stretch and ACS projects" by M. Smotherman and D. Spicer, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 53, No. 12, December 2010, pp. 28-30. Early life and education Conway grew up in White Plains, New York. Although shy and experiencing gender dysphoria as a child, Conway became fascinated and engaged by astronomy (building a 6-inch (150 mm) reflector telescope one summer) and did well in math and science in high school. Conway entered MIT in 1955, earning high grades but ultimately leaving in despair after an attempted gender transition in 1957-8 failed due to the medical climate at the time. After working as an electronics technician for several years, Conway resumed education at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, earning B.S. and M.S.E.E. degrees in 1962 and 1963.Lynn Conway, "Lynn Conway's Retrospective Part I: Childhood and education," 9 February 2005. Early research at IBM Conway was recruited by IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York in 1964, and was soon selected to join the computer architecture team designing an advanced supercomputer, working alongside John Cocke, Herbert Schorr, Ed Sussenguth, Fran Allen and other IBM researchers on the Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) project, inventing multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling while working there. Paul Wallich, "Profile: Lynn Conway—Completing the Circuit," Scientific American Magazine, December 2000.Dianne Lynch, "The Secret Behind 'Project Y': One Woman's Success Story — 'What Works, Works'", ABCNews.com, November 29, 2001. The Computer History Museum has stated that "the ACS machines appears to have been the first superscalar design, a computer architectural paradigm widely exploited in modern high-performance microprocessors." Gender transition After learning of the pioneering research of Dr. Harry Benjamin in transgender treatment and realizing that a full gender transition was now possible, Conway sought his help and became his patient. After suffering from severe depression from gender dysphoria, Conway contacted Dr. Benjamin, who agreed to providing counseling and prescribe hormones. Under Dr. Benjamin's care, Conway began preparing for transition.Hiltzik, Michael A. (2000-11-19.) "Through the Gender Labyrinth.". Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, page 1. (Free reprint. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.) While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had been married to a woman and had two children. Under the legal constraints then in place, after transitioning she was denied access to their children. Although hoping to be allowed to transition on the job, IBM fired Conway in 1968 after revealing intentions to transition to a female gender role. Career as computer scientist Upon completing her transition in 1968, Conway took a new name and identity, and restarted her career in "stealth-mode" as a contract programmer at Computer Applications, Inc. She went on to work at Memorex during 1969–1972 as a digital system designer and computer architect.Lynn Conway's Retrospective PART III: Starting Over Transgender activism When nearing retirement, Conway learned that the story of her early work at IBM might soon be revealed through the investigations of Mark Smotherman that were being prepared for a 2001 publication. She began quietly coming out in 1999 to friends and colleagues about her past gender transition,"Beautiful Daughters Cast: Lynn Conway", LOGO Channel, 2006"Class Notes: 2002 Inductees: Here's how many of our 2002 Hall Of Famers enjoy their leisure time and how they still give back to society", Doris Kilbane, Electronic Design, October 20, 2003."Secrets Are Out: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender engineers are no longer willing to hide their true selves" Jaimie Schock, Prism Magazine, American Society of Engineering Education, October, 2011, pp. 44-47. using her personal website to tell the story in her own words. Her story was then more widely reported in 2000 in profiles in Scientific American and the Los Angeles Times. After going public with her story, she began work in transgender activism, intending to "illuminate and normalize the issues of gender identity and the processes of gender transition." She has worked to protect and expand the rights of transgendered people. She has provided direct and indirect assistance to numerous other transsexual women going through transition and maintains a well-known website providing emotional and medical resources and advice. Parts have been translated into most of the world's major languages.http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway-Translation%20status.htm She maintains a listing of many successful post-transition transsexual people, to, in her words "provide role models for individuals who are facing gender transition." Her website also provides current news related to transgender issues and information on sex reassignment surgery for transsexual women, facial feminization surgery, academic inquiries into the prevalence of transsexualismOlyslager F, Conway L (2008). Transseksualiteit komt vaker voor dan u denkt [Transsexualism is more common than you think.] Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 39-51, 2008. (abstract in English) and transgender/transsexual issues in general."Profile: Lynn Conway," Human Rights Campaign (HRC) websiteBiographies of famous LGBT people: Science: Professor Lynn Conway, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans History Month website Conway has been a prominent critic of the Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory of male-to-female transsexualism that all transsexual women are motivated either by feminine homosexuality or autogynephilia. She was also a key person in the campaign against J. Michael Bailey's controversial book The Man Who Would Be Queen. Dreger, A. D. (2008). The controversy surrounding The man who would be queen: A case history of the politics of science, identity, and sex in the Internet age. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 366-421. Conway and others filed a complaint with Northwestern University accusing Bailey of practicing clinical psychology without a license, and witnessed a complaint by a trans woman accusing Bailey of having sex with a research subject. Benedict Carey wrote an article in which he observed that "the controversy had a life of its own on the Internet." Northwestern University professor Alice Dreger published an article about the controversy, in which she concluded that the campaign against Bailey was an attempt to ruin Bailey's reputation and career by making various false accusations against him. Conway called Dreger's article "one-sided" and complained that its publication, and Carey's article, reflected pro-Bailey bias by the Archives of Sexual Behavior and The New York Times. Conway was a cast member in the first all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues, in Los Angeles in 2004,VDay LA 2004 Commemorative Page, DeepStealth Productions, Los Angeles CA, 2004. and appeared in a LOGO-Channel documentary film about that event entitled Beautiful Daughters."Beautiful Daughters", a documentary by Josh Aronson and Ariel Orr Jordan, LOGO Channel, 2006. She has also strongly advocated for equal opportunities and employment protections for transgender people in high-technology industry,"Computer pioneer speaks from the heart about diversity: Transsexual talks at HP, CSU", by Kate Forgach, Fort Collins Coloradoan, January 26, 2001."Chipping Away at Prejudice", by Sarah Wildman, The Advocate, March 13, 2001."What's pride got to do with it?", by Teri Warner, Employee Communications, Circuit for Employees@Intel, July 1, 2003."Why HR should wake up to the needs of transsexual employees", by Christine Burns, Personnel Today, November 18, 2003."Another Milestone in the Journey: GI and E Added to EEO Policy", Raytheon GLBTA NEWS, August – October 2005. and for elimination of the pathologization of transgender people by the psychiatric community. In 2009, Conway was named one of the "Stonewall 40 trans heroes" on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots by the International Court System, one of the oldest and largest predominantly gay organizations in the world, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Home life In 1987, Conway met her husband Charlie, a professional engineer who shares her interest in the outdoors, including canoeing and motocross. They soon started living together, and bought a house with 24 acres (97,000 m2) of meadow, marsh, and woodland in rural Michigan in 1994. In 2002, they were married. Awards and honors Conway has received a number of awards and distinctions: * Electronics (magazine) 1981 Award for Achievement"The 1981 Achievement Award – Lynn Conway, Carver Mead" by Martin Marshall, Larry Waller, and Howard Wolff, Electronics, October 20, 1981 * Pender Award of the Moore School, University of Pennsylvania, 1984Penn Engineering: The Harold Pender Award * IEEE EAB Major Educational Innovation Award, 1984IEEE EAB Major Educational Innovation Award, 1984. * Fellow of the IEEE, 1985, "for contributions to VLSI technology"IEEE Alphabetical Listing of Fellows * The Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute, 1985"Franklin Institute honors eight physicists", Physics Today, July 1985. * Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award, May 1985"Secretary of Defense Meritorious Achievement Award, May 1985", Meritorious Service Award, May 1985. * Member of the National Academy of Engineering, 1989NAE Member Directory, Section 05. (year from The White House Office of the Press Secretary) * National Achievement Award, Society of Women Engineers, 1990Society of Women Engineers: Achievement Award Winners. * Presidential Appointment to the United States Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, 1996President Clinton Names Lynn Conway to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors", The White House Office of the Press Secretary, January 31, 1996. * Honorary Doctorate, Trinity College, 1998"100 years of engineering excellence", Trinity Reporter, Trinity College, Hartford, CN, Winter 98. * Electronic Design (magazine) Hall of Fame, 2002"Electronic Design Hall of Fame – 2002 Inductees", Electronic Design, October 21, 2002. * Engineer of the Year, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientific and Technical Professionals, 2005"NOGLSTP to Honor Aberson, Conway, and Raytheon at Awards Ceremony in February", Press Release, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals, January 25, 2005. * Named one of the "Stonewall 40 trans heroes" by the ICS and NGLTF, 2009. * Computer Pioneer Award, IEEE Computer Society, 2009 References External links * Lynn Conway's website – primarily written in English, but many articles are provided in other languages as well. Category:1938 births Category:American academics Category:American computer scientists Category:American inventors Category:People from Michigan Category:Transgender and transsexual women Category:Transgender and transsexual scientists Category:Transgender and transsexual peopleCategory:Living people